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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24654787">Unexpected Guest</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously'>ambiguously</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:46:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24654787</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke has an unexpected visitor on his island.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anakin Skywalker/Luke Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Unexpected Guest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_inks/gifts">indigo_inks</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Luke moves from uneasy dreams into wakefulness without passing through the intervening golden drifting that characterizes most of his mornings. Often he'll lie here in his narrow, hard bed, his body still sore from a restless night but his mind lit in the spectacular colors of his youth, dragging them along from his dreams into the first moments of his day. Friends and loved ones long gone will wander across the rose-tinged shades of his closed eyelids, beloved faces with no anger, no loss, nothing to mar this pleasant moment returned to their company. So many mornings have started in the peaceful place of half-slumber before the calls of the porgs outside rouse him, and his memories return to him bearing guilt and shame and loss.</p>
<p>Today he's instantly awake, feeling the familiar pricks of those three companions as he sits up. Something has disturbed him. A sound? But the locals who make this string of islands their home are well away today. Another festival, this one at the other side of the island. The porgs make their usual cries, nothing to stir him this way.</p>
<p>A strange, old, familiar sensation itches inside his head. Another gifted with the Force is here.</p>
<p>Luke frowns. He dons his clothes and his robe to guard against the morning chill. Over the years, one or two pilgrims have discovered his hiding place, by determination or accident while looking for the same Jedi history that brought him here. He'll play the old eccentric, a hermit with no interest in a fellow, until they go away in disgust.</p>
<p>As he exits the rude stone building that's been his home for these last three years, Luke mutters to himself. Muttering is good. It puts strangers off their game, wondering if he's mad as well as crotchety.</p>
<p>The thala-sirens should be awake soon. He'll wander by there if the muttering doesn't work. The last Force-sensitive wanderer to this shore fled not two minutes after Luke's breakfast. The memory puts a grim smirk on his face that he doesn't try to hide. It goes well with the muttering.</p>
<p>Outside, climbing the hill, he sees the newcomer. This one is younger than the last two. He's human, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. His childhood fair hair is darkening, something Luke remembers and can sympathize with, if he has any interest in sympathizing with the latest interloper upon his solitude. The boy's face is set in that halfway point between curiosity and defiance, another thing Luke remembers from his youth.</p>
<p>"Hello," says the boy as soon as he spies Luke.</p>
<p>"Go home." Luke turns and heads towards the sirens. He hears the boy's steps catch up to him. The Force radiates off him as he nears. Luke remembers when he didn't know what that felt like. He only knew that he loved being around Old Ben the hermit, loved spending hours with Leia, could not stop his own feet being drawn back to Darth Vader over and over. Now he has met dozens like himself. He knows this magnetism, drawing him towards others with the same gift, over and over, unable to turn away from another whose very presence tingles in the air.</p>
<p>The boy senses it, too. "You're a Jedi." Curious. He's heard that sentence numerous times, spoken either in awe or in threat, or in vague annoyance but that was Han. The boys says it as a statement of fact alone, devoid of surprise, wonder, or fear.</p>
<p>"Used to be," Luke replies. Better to visit the thala-sirens quickly, although he's starting to think the boy won't be so easily put off.</p>
<p>"I need your help."</p>
<p>"Not interested."</p>
<p>He frowns then, and Luke catches a glimpse of the scowl. So much power, and there's a familiarity to it, and to his face. Luke pushes the thought away, but it returns. The boy isn't that young, and given another few years, his face could easily form into one Luke has seen on ghostly nights.</p>
<p>Out of interest, he pauses, and clutches the boy's arm. Not a ghost, and full of power he can't deny that he's felt before.</p>
<p>Luke looks at him again, confused, the thala-sirens forgotten. "What did you need?"</p>
<p>"I'm lost. I'm a Jedi, too." Luke's eyes fix on his padawan braid. Anakin, because there is no one else this can be, says, "I'm a padawan learner, not a Knight, but I am still a Jedi."</p>
<p>Luke's training took him many places and while he thinks defeating Vader and thus the Emperor counted as his Knight Trials, he can't say for sure he ever made it to that level either. "Lost how?"</p>
<p>"I was on Coruscant just now." Anakin looks around himself. "I was meditating. This is not Coruscant."</p>
<p>"Meditating doesn't usually involve travel." He stops himself from saying 'through time' before the words escape. "What were you doing besides that?"</p>
<p>"Nothing." The scowl is back.</p>
<p>Luke wonders if this is how his father's path was build, not by great enterprise but by a thousand small petty resentments piled one by one. He doesn't dare change who this boy will become. Perhaps he can set aside one small stone he's hoarding. "I'm not going to judge you," he says, using the same calm voice he used on Ben to steer him away from the worst of his rages, before the last rage destroyed everything. "If you tell me everything you were doing, maybe we can figure out how you came here."</p>
<p>Anakin hides inside his own distrust. Ben used to do the same thing. Luke wonders if he did this too. "I was meditating."</p>
<p>"What were you thinking about?"</p>
<p>He sighs. "The future. My place in it." He fingers his own braid. "Who I want to be rather than who everyone thinks I ought to be."</p>
<p>He's said enough. What Anakin believes is his own existential sorrow, and Luke recognizes from experience as typical adolescent angst, also appears to have been an accidental spell drawing Anakin into the future.</p>
<p>"Did you have anything with you in the room while you meditated?"</p>
<p>A shrug. "Some books."</p>
<p>The Jedi Temple had a magnificent library, one Luke would trade a small planet to visit. Now all that's left is his small collection here. Books of power, in the presence of someone formed of pure Force energy as his father had been according to the stories, might be enough to make his wishful thoughts into reality. Luke's books are not especially powerful. Perhaps they don't need to be.</p>
<p>"I can try to help you."</p>
<p>"Thanks. I need to get back. My master will be worried if I'm missing again."</p>
<p>Luke longs for the story behind the 'again' but he knows he'll never get it. He has to help Anakin get back to his own time before he does anything to ruin his own past. "Come with me."</p>
<p>They head into the inner room together. Luke takes a moment to appreciate the beauty of the youth next to him. Now that his mood has passed, Anakin wears an eager smile. His face is bright with the adventure, and his eyes show no trace of the madness that accompanies a fall to the Sith. Right now, on this half-cloudy morning, he could grow into anyone.</p>
<p>For a moment, Luke's vision blurs, and in front of him he sees another path. The boy stays here instead of returning to the world he left, the world that twisted him into the mechanical monster who tortured the galaxy in his own pain. Anakin grows to manhood on this isolated world, surrounded by waves, such a different fate than his sand-born past would have allowed. At Luke's side day and night, he completes his training, learning peace and acceptance.</p>
<p>The vision goes on without Luke's will: Anakin is tempted each day by the submerged X-Wing but refusing to take it until the same unease in his heart now overtakes him, and he flies away, only to discover the galaxy he loved is long past, that time moved on without him long ago. He returns to Luke, shaken, unable to express his grief, or his unbearable relief. He embraces Luke, holds him, needs Luke to love him, understands Luke is the only person in the galaxy now who does, until they fall shamefully into the bed together, Anakin crying and Luke unwilling to tell him to stop.</p>
<p>The vision ends as abruptly as it started, and his eyes clear.</p>
<p>Anakin, still a bot, stares at him in confusion.</p>
<p>Luke waves his hand in front of his face. "Sorry. I'm fine. It was just a passing moment." He puts on a smile he doesn't feel and says, "Let's get you home."</p>
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